THIS is the fittest case for immediate action for spreading religious hatred -- against Tamil Nadu Minister Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin (who also happens to be son of TN Chief Minister Mr. M.K. Stalin) who went overboard likening Sanatan Dharma to diseases like Malaria and Dengue and calling for its eradication. He should be booked immediately, no matter the position of power he holds, and punished in accordance with the law of the land. When a person who has taken oath of office swearing on the Constitution of India to uphold sacred principles enshrined there, indulges in spreading filth against one religion or way of life, then he must be booked and punished in the strictest of terms possible under law. Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin deserves only such a treatment in full accordance with the law of the land. Most unfortunately, Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin’s remark is not an isolated utterance; it is an integral part of a conspiratorial spread of anti-Hindu (read Sanatan) narrative designed to play vote-bank politics. There should be no problem with politics if the activity does not indulge in slamming religions. But when a narrative is worked up deliberately to spread ill-will about a religious faith or a way of life -- that Sanatan is -- then it becomes a criminal indulgence of planned action to drive a wedge through the social ranks.

 

Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin’s remark comes under that category. Hence our insistence that he be arrested forthwith and punished the hardest. The ground-swell of strong reactions that the ugly remark elicited from various sections of the larger Indian society shows how badly hurt the sentiments are. If Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin had involved any other religion -- say Islam -- for making such a remark, the country would have got engulfed in a terrible social strife that would have been difficult to quell. But the peace-loving Hindu -- Sanatan -- community has resorted to expressing its strong exception to the highly undesirable remarks by the rabid Udayanidhi Stalin who has lost moral and constitutional right to continue as a Minister in Tamil Nadu Government. For, in targetting the Sanatan belief, he has violated his own oath -- which he has done deliberately. By doing so, he has sowed seeds of a serious social discord that would be difficult to be assuaged. There is no doubt that the father-son Stalin duo is fully aware of the consequences of making an ugly statement targetting the Sanatan faith in such a manner. Despite this, they appear to have chosen to make the statement with a dirty political purpose. Both of them seem to have forgotten that the lady of their family -- that is the wife of Mr. M.K. Stalin and mother of Udayanidhi -- is a regular visitor to temples and shrines and is known to have been generous in showering upon those rich donations.

 

Does the son now want his own mother’s faith to be trampled upon? To this question, the Stalin duo apparently has no answer! Though on individual basis, many Opposition leaders -- particularly from the I.N.D.I.A. grouping -- have chosen to say nothing against Udayanidhi’s remark, they have their own private reservations against any such indulgence. Many of them have expressed an open opposition to the Udayanidhi’s remark. Obviously, this episode will have several adverse impacts on the I.N.D.I.A. grouping’s electoral prospects. One, the I.N.D.I.A. unity would be a suspect proposition; two, the believers of the Sanatan faith -- who form about 80-plus percentage of the Indian population -- would turn away from the new grouping; three, those sections would converge to the other pole of India’s domestic polity, that is the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance. There is no doubt that the I.N.D.I.A. leaders are fully aware of the adverse impact of such remarks. Yet, they do not seem to mind -- possibly because their interest is not in winning elections in 2024, but only in creating terrible social disturbances in the country. In other words, these people are playing into the hands of some foreign conspiratorial power that is masterminding stress and strife in the larger Indian society. Such remarks directed against the Sanatan appear to be part of a dirty anti-national design. For, in the past some time, many such remarks have come up -- suspectedly with the purpose of creating disturbances in the Indian society.

 

There are reasons to suspect that such remarks propose to go far beyond the realm of electoral politics. The law empowers the State to proceed against all the persons who indulge in making such remarks against any faith. The people who live by the Sanatan ideals form more than 80 per cent of the total Indian population. When sentiments of such a larger segment of the population are hurt, the consequences could be terrible. In view of all such ugly possibilities, we insist that Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin needs to be arrested immediately and suitably punished. He may indulge in a swagger that the Tamil Nadu Police would not act against him -- which was why he said, in effect, that he did not care about consequences of his remark. In such a situation, a simple suo motu court order, too, can put the arrogant Tamil Nadu Minister behind bars. There may be other ways as well to book the man without delay -- which need to be explored and exploited immediately. This must be done in larger national interest so that the undesirable tendency is halted in its tracks. Anybody who indulges in making such remarks needs to be taught a lesson -- no matter, then, who he or she is. If there is any delay in taking action against Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin, then the common people would get the message that anybody can mock at the core values of India’s democratic and secular polity. That must be avoided at all costs.